✤ overview ✤
become an impeccant feline whose existence is bound by registers of ailuric abstraction. uncover a prodigious maze of audiovisual crystallization at soul-rending pace
✤ features ✤
• explore a cat notebook
• many unique illustrations to look at and songs to listen to
• do cat-like things
• 40+ hours of gameplay
• suffer alone or together as a great party game
• only enjoyable while delirious
• non-referential content
• extremely limited features and gameplay
• exasperatingly challenging, impossible to speedrun
✤ genre ✤
the dark souls of walking simulators, the desert bus of yume-nikki likes. more virtual museum than game. not for the faint of heart
✤ more ✤
chelladine approached the mysterious screen, emitting a pale glow of curiosity and illusion. she pressed her gentle paw pad against the screen and it sparked to life. suddenly, a gray speckled cat wearing a burgundy cloak climbed out of the screen and confronted chelladine
"you've come here to learn more about this game," the gray cat declared
chelladine turned her head to the side in bewilderment
"no, i do not wish to know about your game. in fact i am not sure why i am here at all!" mused chelladine
the gray cat looked her in her ruby eyes
"even past the beauty of your eyes, i can see the curiosity," the gray cat taunted
chelladine took a small purse from her backpack. a ruby-like dangly dangled from the silver-trimmed pocketbook. she slowly and deliberately took out a small leaf, which she began to gnaw on
the gray cat was visibly impatient
"look, there's only one reason why anyone ever comes here, and it is because they require, no, need, information about nair's game," he said, dragging his ragged paw pads against his face, stretching it out downwardsly
"downwardsly is not a word," chelladine pointed out, swallowing the remainder of the mint tasting leaf with a pronounced gulp
it was at this point the curator realized he was in an abstract construct
stepping back, the curator conjured a knife in his paw. the knife was a pronounced silver with red accents bleeding through it, as if the knife's previous victim had been immortalized
"downwardsly is probably not a word!" he cackled. "but nair was using wordpad for windows 10 when he wrote it, which he forgot did not have spell-check"
chelladine liked the knife the curator was holding quite a bit. "can i see your knife?" she said, turning her head sideways with the same previously innocuous motion
the curator tried to regain her focus. "chelladine, do you realize you can read the script we are performing? why did you mention that misspelt word?" he waved his knife around wildly
chelladine did not seem interested in metaphysical aberrations. she did seem interested in the knife, though. "i wish to see your gorgeous knife!" she asked again, a smile beginning to form on her precious ****ing face
the curator looked toward the 4th wall, eyes beaming. "with pleasure..."
the curator considered leaping forward and stabbing chelladine in the eye, but then scried the bottom of the store description to find out that this ends poorly for him and decided against it
chelladine turned around, panning over walls 1, 2, and 3, which were an endless, verdant, canopy filled forest. vibrant rays of imaginary sun seeped through the soothing trees. wall 2 was perpendicular to the computer monitor which she had touched and which the curator had climbed out of
it was at this point nair realized that despite his writing reticle having the appearance of a page, writing 10 pages for this description would be impossible since wordpad did not have page delineators. he searched around for a word count, or something similar that would give him an arbitrary goal to aim for
the curator slashed frustratedly in 3 dimensions. "nair! all you had to do was write a ****ing description for your ****ty game, and here i a-"
unwilling to ponder the dynamics of the scenario, nair reverted the scene to a previous instance, remembering to check the box that prohibits the story's characters from being able to observe the medium they exist in
chelladine sat on the grassy floor. "i love that this forest unpacks their grass. did you know there are lands that do not? huge, towering cubes of still-packed grass, looming over acres of raw dirt...such an unsightly spectacle"
the curator was dizzy, an all too familiar feeling. he looked down into his upturned paws, a gorgeous intricate handcrafted knife laying in them. chelladine's paws were above his, touching the knife
"thank you!" mused chelladine
chelladine sat on the grass with the knife in her paws, appreciating how the sun played off the silver and crimson. the silver had infinitely detailed oil-slick ravines, the crimson was like a bloody amber
the curator sat across from her, sighing, paws on face with his head held low
chelladine sniffed and licked the side of the knife with her prickly tongue
"hmm... i certainly can not figure out what kind of gem this is..."
the curator seized the opportunity
"may i ask your name?" he asked, tilting her chin up carefully enough to not risk hurting her with the knife she was observing
"it's chelladine. the pleasure is mine. yours?"
"i'll tell you in a brief second, darling." the cat known as the curator said. "chelladine, i would like to explain why this monitor is here in the middle of this forest. mind listening?"
"chelladine pulled out her gun." chelladine said while not pulling out her gun
'****...', thought the curator
"chelladine pulled out her gun....chelladine pulled out her gun...." chelladine repeated
the curator gazed at the hypnotized chelladine, who was clutching the knife with both paws while licking the broad side of it
"chelladine pulled out her gun"
chelladine sat lopsided, drooling and licking the side of the blade. the once rigid crimson amber was now melting, staining chelladine's white face and neck fur. her brilliant white silken bow was now nearly entirely red
chelladine spasmed and twitched, her eyes rolling towards the back of her head. "chelladi..." she choked out
the curator snatched the knife back, accidentally slitting chelladine's palm
"****..."
chelladine awoke, her eyes entirely a single color of red-black. crystallized saliva dripped from her heaving mouth, evaporating the grass it touched below
the curator affixed the knife to the sheath inside his cloak
chelladine let out a heavy sigh and looked at the curator with her voided eyes. her voice was deeper and strained. "alright, we're going to fix this. i'm not sure what happened, but you let someone touch the knife"
the curator looked away and spoke "...i was trying to get closer to her to explain the game. we did not know licking causes reversion..."
chelladine made a runic gesture and the forest repacked itself, everting into a flat endless void with faint offblack coordinates marking a grid. omnidirectional lighting flooded the scene
"well then..." the possessed chelladine stated stonily. "now we know." chelladine sat down again, legs spread apart. "hand me the knife"
the curator reached into his robe and handed the sheathed knife to chelladine. on the silver and gold sheath was an engraving of a strange elongated cat
"can we go back to an equal plane now?" the curator complained
"one moment, ****." chelladine unsheathed the knife and brought it closer to her sullen, voided eyes, staring at it closely. "do you remember how crimson amber works?"
"don't **** with me, nair," the curator said
"don't **** with yourself," barked chelladine. "never remove the sheath from your robe or we'll potentially lose the knife when reverting." chelladine aggressively reached into the curator’s robe and rehooked the sheath. she took a few steps back and sat down with the knife
whipping her head back, chelladine gargled the crystals in her throat and pressed the knife into her tongue, enclosing the knife with her lips. her closed mouth emitted a pained grunt of sheer discomfort. the grunt turned into a strangled scream
the knife fell to the floor, chelladine heaving over it, blood dripping onto the knife and reacting with black sparks. the blood coagulated and filled the grooves, and color began to come back to chelladine’s eyes. the expansive gridlines stretched closer and closer, to the point where the offblack lines were a searing white. the interior of a baroque chateau materialized around the curator and a hooded cat laid were chelladine once was
"my ****ing head..." said nair, pulling back his hood
the curator looked at his purpose, a white and brown sphynx grasping his head, wearing a burgundy and gray hoodie and white shorts with a wide gray cloth belt
nair pulled and uncorked a vial of clear liquid from the desk to his left and gulped it down exasperatedly. the curator took a green vial and did the same
"we need to be more careful next time," lamented the curator
nair climbed up to his desk and stared at the printed parchment describing the plane they had recently disjointed from
"do you have the knife?" asked nair
the curator's eyes widened in brief panic as he patted down his robe. he located the knife within his robe and placed it on nair's mahogany desk. the knife was tarnished and the embedded crimson amber was dull and desaturated
the curator picked up the empty vials and brought them to the other side of the room
"there's no way we're going to get this approved," mumbled nair, polishing the knife with a gray cloth
the curator knew not to intervene. there was a correct time, and this was not it
the rubbing intensified, to the point where the cloth was developing tears. the curator stared downwards, back turned to nair, washing the vials
the vigorous polishing did not cease. nairs forearms tensed as he ran the cloth back and forth, heedless of consequence. the knife pressed against scrap, then skin, then blood
with gritted teeth, and holding back tears, nair dipped the fountain pen into his own blood and scribbled something over the strewn parchment on his desk. he pressed his paws against his chest, feeling a silver and crimson amber nipple ring
he arced his paw up, blood flecking a line across the walls and ceiling, and hurled the knife at the curator
the curator did not flinch at the sudden whirl of air. the knife struck him in his back and the world collapsed
the curator lay curled on the forest floor next to the monitor, chelladine’s hindpaw on his cheek, her weight pinning him down as she stood over him, her gun held to his head
"i-it is not important that you know about cat notebook," the gray cat stammered, his tears spraying and balling on his hydrophobic cloak. "what is important is that you know why this description doesn't answer what it is"
✤ reviews ✤
"i don't have enough lsd tabs for this"
"that's like a panda cat... whoa... pat..."
"try the other eye"
"get out of my notebook"
"what's with the ****ing xo motif"
"running out of tabs here guys-"
"...you really have to get everybody to shut up"
"this game is 100% gameplay; there are no instances to jar you away from the game. this is a gamer's game"
